AT&T Wireless has announced a new way to use your cellphone, one that I never would have imagined: music recognition. From Gizmodo:
AT&T Wireless has announced a new service that helps you identify songs with your cellphone. After dialing ‘#ID’ and playing the phone close to the music source for 15 seconds, customers will receive a text message with the name and artist of the song. Using the Musicphone database of over one million songs, the service will cost $.99 per use, plus air time. So what’s better: paying a buck to know what song you’re listening to, or rummaging through iTunes until you can find the song and buy it?
AT&T’s press release says:
“We’ve all been in a situation where we hear a song that we like, but have no idea of its title or who sings it,” said Glenice Maclellan, vice president of messaging services for AT&T Wireless. “Now, your wireless phone can ‘name that tune’ for you. Song recognition is another example of the numerous ways AT&T Wireless helps inform and entertain our customers – giving them access to some of the industry’s broadest selection of multi-dimensional entertainment services.”
The new “#ID” music service is provided by San Francisco-based Musicphone in cooperation with UK-based Shazam Entertainment, which operates a propriety recognition database of more than one million recorded songs. AT&T Wireless customers can trial the music recognition service at no charge beyond standard airtime charges when they first dial “#ID.” Afterwards, the service costs $.99 cents, plus standard airtime charges, each time they use it.
